Something in space is sending us bright blue flashes – and now scientists might know what they are

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Something in space is sending us brief, very bright blasts of blue light – and scientists might finally have a clue to what they are.

The phenomenon, known as luminous fast blue optical transients or LFBOTs, comes in the form of short, bright flashes of light that fade away and leave behind other X-ray and radio emissions. They have perplexed scientists for a decade, despite scientists having spotted more than a dozen of them.

Possible explanations have included everything from strange supernovae to interstellar gas being eaten by a black hole. But now scientists believe they have another explanation.

That came after researchers looked at a new example, found last year and the brightest of its kind.

That new example suggests that the LFBOTs are caused by “extreme tidal disruption”. That happens when vast black holes eats its companion star, tearing it to shreds.

As well as helping explain the mysterious phenomenon, the research could help us better understand how black holes work and the ways that stars evolve, according to the researchers behind it. For instance, huge black holes have been seen in experiments, but scientists still don’t know how they actually come to form.

“Theorists have come up with many ways to explain how we get these large black holes, to explain what LIGO sees,” said Raffaella Margutti, UC Berkeley associate professor of astronomy and physics, in a statement. “LFBOTs allow you to get at this question from a completely different angle.

“They also allow us to characterize the precise location where these things are inside their host galaxy, which adds more context in trying to understand how we end up with this setup — a very large black hole and a companion.”

The new work is described in two new papers – ‘The Most Luminous Known Fast Blue Optical Transient AT 2024wpp: Unprecedented Evolution and Properties in the X-rays and Radio’ and ‘The Most Luminous Known Fast Blue Optical Transient AT 2024wpp: Unprecedented Evolution and Properties in the Ultraviolet to the Near-Infrared’ – that are available online and have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.